The people

NCP Norway consists of four members and a secretariat with three employees, and is administratively under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The secretariat is responsible for the daily work of the Contact Point. This includes, among other things, providing guidance on the guidelines and due diligence assessments, preparing the processing of specific instances and facilitating dialogue and mediation. It is the members who make the final decisions in the specific instances.

The secretariat

The secretariat is responsible for the daily work of the Contact Point. This includes, among other things, providing guidance on the guidelines and due diligence assessments, preparing the processing of specific instances and facilitating dialogue and mediation. It is the members who make the final decisions in the specific instances.

• 

  Kristel M. Tonstad

  Policy Director and Head of Secretariat

  E-mail: kton@mfa.no

  Pone: +47 47 95 72 44
  
  Tonstad has a law degree from the University of Oslo and a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University. She served as Head of Secretariat of the Ethics Information Committee, which presented a draft law on transparency in supply chains, duty to know and due diligence (Transparency Act) to the Norwegian Government in 2019. In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tonstad worked with government policies on human rights (2015) and responsible business conduct (2009). She has served as a Norwegian diplomat in Egypt (2014 – 2016) and has previously worked as legal advocacy and policy adviser in the Norwegian Refugee Council and with UNICEF in Haiti and in the Republic of Georgia.

• 

  Per Bondevik

  Senior Advisor

  E-mail: Per.Bondevik@mfa.no

  Phone: +47 95 01 29 69

  Bondevik has a master’s degree in economics from the University of Oslo and the Université des Sciences Sociales in Toulouse. He has worked with international development cooperation, business and human rights since 1997, including six years as Managing Director of Ethical Trade Norway (until 2016).

  Key areas of work include global supply chains, conflict minerals, capital flows, gender equality and public procurement. In the period 2011 to 2016, Bondevik was an expert member of Kompakt, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ consultation body for business and human rights.

  As a consultant, he has been i charge of evaluating several major programs within business and human rights, with a particular focus on textile production in Asia.

  Bondevik has worked as an advisor for business and human rights in both the Norwegian Church Aid and FOKUS and spent seven years in Bolivia for the Norwegian Mission Alliance.

• 

  Åse Kristin Sand

  Senior Advisor

  Mail: Ase.Kristin.Sand@mfa.no

  Phone: +47 23 95 04 63 / +47 98 45 97 16

  Sand has a Cand. Philol. degree in Media and Communication from the University of Bergen. She started in the Secretariat in 2018 and is responsible for the Norwegian NCP’s courses in responsible business conduct and due diligence for businesses. She also has experience in complaint handling. Sand worked many years in civil society in the Norwegian Burma/Myanmar Committee, with communication and advocacy. Main areas were responsible business conduct, human rights, women’s rights and democracy building. Sand has written the report “How to reduce risk: A guide for Norwegian companies in Myanmar” (in Norwegian) and conducted a study for Future in our hands on workers’ rights in the garment industry in Myanmar and Ethiopia.

The expert members

The NCP members are appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries, in consultation with the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion and the Ministry of Finance. They are appointed based on nominations from the social partners (NHO and LO) and civil society through their umbrella organisation Forum for Development and the Environment.

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  Frode Elgesem

  Leader

  E-mail: frode.elgesem@domstol.no

  Elgesem is Cand jur, University of Oslo. Elgesem also holds a Master of Laws degree from King´s College, University of London. Elgesem is judge of the Borgarting Court of Appeal. Elgesem has more than 25 years of experience as a lawyer, both from the Attorney general for Civil Affairs and the law firms Hjort and Thommessen. He was admitted to the Supreme Court´s Bar in 1995. As a lawyer he has ben an advisor to central Norwegian companies on compliance issues with focus on business and human rights, anti-corruption and competition law. He has been member and leader of the Human Rights Committee of the Bar Associations and is member of the Human Rights committee of the Association of Norwegian judges. He has written the book “Business and human rights” (in Norwegian) together with Njål Høstmælingen. Elgesem has been a member of the NCP since March 2014..

  Elgesem was appointed as leader from March 1, 2019 and reappointed on March 1, 2023.

  Download full-size image here.

  For free use, must credit the photographer: Fredrik Naumann/FelixFeatures

• 

  Carin Leffler

  Member

  E-mail: carin@framtiden.no

  Carin is a senior advisor at Future in Our Hands, specializing in the topics of human rights in supply chains and the Transparency Act. She is the coordinator for the Norwegian section of the global network Clean Clothes Campaign, which supports the fight for decent working conditions in textile factories worldwide. She has worked on a number of cases related to conflicts at factories in various production countries and collaborates with trade unions and human rights organizations in Asia on campaigns for living wages, the International Accord on safety in Bangladesh and Pakistan, the right to organize, among others. Carin holds a master’s degree in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and an minor degree in Anthropology from the University of Oslo.

  Carin was appointed as a member on April 22, 2025.

• 

  Liv Tørres

  Member

  E-mail: liv.torres@lo.no

  Tærres has a Doctorate in political science, University of Oslo. Tørres is the international secretary of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions – LO Norway. Tørres has worked on international humanitarian, labour, development, and human rights issues for three decades. Before joining LO-Norway at the end of 2021, she was the director of the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, hosted by NYU in New York. She has previously served as Executive Director of the Nobel Peace Center, as Secretary General of Norwegian People’s Aid, Research Director at the Institute for Applied Social Sciences Fafo in Norway, and as political advisor for Norway’s Minister of Labour and Social Inclusion. Her background includes positions such as Senior Advisor at the Research Council of Norway, Associate Professor at the University of Oslo and for several years visiting professor at Wits University in South Africa. She established and managed Fafo South Africa, a policy research centre in the 1990s. Tørres served more recently as the chair of the portfolio board for Global development and international Relations of the Research Council of Norway from the end of 2021 to the beginning of 2024; was part of the government appointed expert group on financing of the SDGs in 2023 and part of the Human Rights Expert Forum in Telenor ASA during 2023.

  Tørres was appointed NCP member 1 March 2024.

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  Anita Marie Gilje Househam

  Member

  E-mail: amghouseham@gmail.com

  Househam has a Master’s degree in International Business Law, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Househam is Vice President for Social Sustainibility at Orkla ASA. She has previously served as Senior Advisor for Social Sustainability at Statnett, Human Rights Director at Telenor ASA and Senior Manager at the United Nations Global Compact’s (UNGC) headquarters in New York.  At UNGC she worked with multinational companies (including Cisco Systems, Inditex, Volkswagen, Safaricom, Infosys Technologies, AP Moller Maersk) and international organizations (ILO, UNICEF, OHCHR, UN Women) in developing frameworks and guidance for responsible business and sustainable supply chains. Househam has served as a board member of the Global Network Initiative, a multi stakeholder collaboration promoting freedom of expression and privacy rights in the ICT sector. She was also a member of the steering committee that led the development of the Children’s Rights and Business Principles (UNGC, UNICEF and Save the Children).  Earlier in her career, Househam worked with the financial sector on sustainable investment, and with the clothing and textile industry on advancing decent working conditions in the supply chain.

  Househam was appointed NCP member 1 March 2024.